Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) quick review – style and options that make the mid-range even more attractive

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Samsung’s Galaxy J lineup offers affordable devices ranging from low-end to mid-range models. The top smartphone of this series seems to be the Galaxy J7 (2016) which was announced at the end of March and is now available on the market. As a Galaxy J leader, the J7 differs from its brothers in terms of specs and design.

We are dealing with a big Super AMOLED display, octa-core Exynos mobile CPU and promising battery and camera. Even though this phone is not part of Samsung’s flagship family, it is a device that impresses consumers and the reason for this is clear – Samsung has found the right balance between features and price. Whether this is entirely true and whether a more meticulous examination would discover some flaws in this seemingly decent device, you shall see in the following lines.

If you are interested in the purchase of this smartphone, you can check its price and availability here: http://amzn.to/1RsHuHo

Contents

Design and construction

In the not so distant past Samsung may have been rightfully accused of not providing the best possible design for their models, but now the leading Galaxy S and Galaxy A lineups prove that the Korean company has learned its lesson. This is slighlty less applicable to the Galaxy J series, but its top representative is not at all bad looking. Its profile is only 7.8 mm thick and the gentle metal frame encompassing the device adds a pinch of premium feel to it. Also, the edges of the smartphone are slightly rounded and the sides are partly chamfered which should contribute to a more comfortable and secure grip. And the latter is truly so, but we must not forget that it is a 5.5-incher we are talking about and operation on it with a single hand might not always be easy.

The thin sides have some room for small hardware buttons – two for volume control (on the left) and a Power button (on the right). They are protruding which makes them comfortable to use. At the top there is nothing to be found, while at the bottom you can observe an integrated microphone, headphone jack and a microUSB port for charging and data transfer.

As expected, the back is made of plastic but it features elegant matte texture which resembles metal. The most prominent element of this side is the 13MP camera that protrudes a bit, but not to an incovenient extent. Beside it you can find the LED flash and loudspeaker. Slightly below them is the silverish Samsung inscription.

At the front of the phone there is the traditional hardware Home button. There is no fingerprint scanner here though. Apparently this is a feature only higher-end models have. Anyway, you are also presented with the two typical sensor buttons. Above the screen is the 5MP front-facing camera and another LED flash. Beside them are the earpiece, ambien light and proximity sensors, and yet another Samsung logo.

Under the hood

A dedicated notch at the top allows you to easily remove the back and access the big battery. The latter is also removable and you will definitely need to take it out in order to reach the micro-SIM card slot. It is positioned on the right, beside the microSD card slot.

Display and sound

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) comes with a 5.5-inch display which is the biggest screen in the J lineup. It is HD (1280 x 720 p) which is common for the mid-range. The pixel density is 267ppi which means that the screen becomes of the Retina type if looked at from 33 cm or more. We appreciate the presence of a Super AMOLED panel that offers high contrast and brightness levels. Additionally, the colors are vibrant and viewing angles are perfect.

Similarly to Galaxy J3, here we find several additonal options in the Display submenu. One of them is the Outdoor mode meant for work outdoors, it bumps up the brightness so that you won’t have any visibility problems under direct sunlight. There are also several presets that adjust color saturation and sharpness so that the image is more suitable for reading or video playback, for example.

Sound

“Mid-range” is all we can say in this respect. The sound won’t impress you with its power, but you won’t notice any serious deterioration of quality at maximum power either.

Battery

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) comes with a 3300 mAh battery and even though it has to power the big 5.5″ display and octa-core CPU, it seems decent enough to provide the required battery life. To confirm this, we conduct five different tests and compare the results to those of other competitive phones from the same price range. You are well familiar with the aspects we examine – phone call, Wi-Fi and 3G Web browsing, and gaming. To ensure reliable results, we use the same settings – brightness set to 120 cd/m2, Wi-Fi turned on, 3G, Bluetooth and GPS turned off (with the exception of the 3G browsing test).

Power saving mode

Even though we saw that the Galaxy J7 battery is durable enough, Samsung has not forgotten to add some battery saving modes. The first of them is the Power saving mode which reduces the maximum CPU performance, screen brightness and display timeout. Furthermore, the Ultra powe saving mode is even more restricting as it allows only a few basic functions and applies a grayscale theme to your screen. However, in return for this sacrifice you get a considerably increased battery life.

Software

Galaxy J7 comes with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, accompanied by Samsung’s TouchWiz UI which alters the overall appearance by giving menus and icons different style. Apart from that, you are offered several pre-installed apps which include the Microsoft Apps folder that consists of apps such as OneDriveOneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Skype. Also present are some typical Samsung apps – S Planner and S Voice. You can also find an app for notetaking, radio, convenient file manager and Galaxy Apps store.

S Health

For those of you who are into sports S Health provides a detailed analysis of you activity which also includes your heart rate, sleep quality and even income of liquids. You have the option of creating a diet and access information about the nutritious value of everything you eat.

Settings menu

Smart Manager

In the past Smart Manager may have been just one among many apps on Galaxy devices, but now it has its place in the settings menu. The options it offers, however, are the same – info about the battery status, occupied internal and RAM storage, and device security.

Themes

As it was the case with previously reviewed Galaxy models, here we also have a section dedicated to Themes. Each theme alters completely the UI – affecting wallpapers, menus and icons. You also have access to Samsung’s store where you can choose from a wide variety of themes.

Do not disturb

Also interesting is the Do not disturb mode as it allows you to turn off the sound for all notifications and calls. You have the option to choose which days and hours it should work and the notifications that can remain active.

Advanced features

If you press the Home button three times, it allows you to operate the device with a single hand. In this way the screen is significantly reduced so that you may use your thumb to reach whatever is needed. You can also activate the function of one-handed typing – it allows you to adjust the keyboard size for easier typing.

A quick double-press of the Home button opens the camera app.

If you’ve missed some calls or texts, th telephone has the option of vibrating when you take it in your hand (assuming that it has not been in your hand before that).

If you cover the ambient light and proximity sensors, you can thus silence an alarm or a call.

Easy mode

With the activation of this mode, the size of all fonts and icons will be increased and in this way the home page will display a fewer number of them. You can decide which apps should remain easily accessible. On one of the home pages you will have your favorite contacts. Additionally, the settings menu is also simplified.

Accessibility

The phone also offers an “Accessibility” submenu that can further simplify the manipulation with this device. This functionality is mainly for people with different health problems. The images below display all available options this submenu feautres.

Performance

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) comes with an Exynos 7 Octa 7870 CPU. As the name suggests, it has eight cores of Cortex-A53 architecture in our case, and an operational frequency of 1.6 GHz. It has been manufactured through a 14 nm process which reduces its power consumption with 30% (when compared to its 28 nm predecessor). Perhaps this is one of the main reasons for the great battery performance. In addition, the CPU is accompanied by a Mali-T830 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The chip is characterized by LTE Cat 6 connectivity with download speed of up to 300 Mbps, Full HD display support, up to 16MP cameras and 60fps Full HD recording. We conducted our traditional CPU benchmark tests and compared their results to those of other competitive models from the same price range. You can find more information about the Exynos 7 Octa 7870 in Samsung’s official page: http://news.samsung.com/

The internal storage of Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) is 16 GB which is expandable with up to 128 GB via the microSD card slot.

CPU

Geekbench 3.0 is Primate Labs cross-platform processor benchmark which simulates real-world scenarios and gives a combined score, based on the results of integer, floating point and memory performance.

GPU

The T-Rex 2.7 test is based on ES 2.0/GL 3.0 and includes highly detailed textures, materials, complex geometry, particles with animated textures and a post-process motion blur effect. The graphics pipeline also features planar reflections, specular highlights and soft-shadows.

In this test, 3DMark’s Unlimited engine uses a fixed frame interval and renders exactly the same frames in every run on every device. The frames are rendered in 720p "offscreen" while the display is updated with small frame thumbnails every 100 frames to indicate progress.

Temperatures

After we checked its CPU and GPU performance, it is now time to see if such continuous load leads to a significant temperature rise on the surface. For this purpose we resorted to the Epic Citadel app simulating real-life gaming. Thus, after a few hours of stress test we measured the maximum temperatures in three different sections at the smartphone’s back. Neither of them, however, shows any worrying signs – the device remained cool. The hottest point we measured was barely 32.3 degrees Celsius in the middle section. As far as the camera area is concerned – we got 30.1 degrees, and the third section did not even manage to reach 30 degrees – we measured only 29.8 degrees.

Camera

Galaxy J7 (2016) features a main 13MP camera with an LED flash, autofocus and an aperture value of f/1.9. The camera menu offers several mode including a Pro mode that brings more precise adjustments such as white balance, ISO control and others. You will also find options for panorama, continuous shooting, beautiful face which allows you to adjust skin tone, eye size or to enlarge faces. The Sound and shot mode gives you the option to add sound recording of up to 9 seconds long after you press the shutter button. On the other hand, there is a Sports mode for capturing moving subjects, HDR for more saturated colors, and a night mode for poor lighting conditions. Also, there are a few additional options – if you double click the Home button, the camera app opens instantaneously; you can also customize the volume controls – you can take picture, record video or zoom with them. As far as the video recording is concerned – the camera can do Full HD.

The front-facing 5MP camera also features an LED flash. Here you can also find several modes (albeit fewer) which include a wide selfie option that allows you to capture more people in a single selfie shot. Also present here is the Sound and shot mode and the ability of taking several subsequent photos a few seconds apart. You also get a few Beauty options.

Settings and modes

Photos

Panorama

Video

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) is a great example of what a 2016 mid-range device should be. The smartphone offers pleasant and elegant design, Super AMOLED display with HD resolution that still provides bright and contrasty colors, and an octa-core Exynos CPU that not only ensures high performance but also keeps temperatures exceptionally low. Apart from that, it is very easy on the 3300 mAh battery that impressed us with its amazing results. An undeniable advantage is the latest Android version which is supplemented by some additional features of Samsung’s UI. Additionally, camera performance is decent, the photos taken with it are good considering the price-range, and it also provides a settings menu with manual options and modes. In a nutshell, Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) is a mid-range device with no drawbacks.

If you are interested in the purchase of this smartphone, you can check its price and availability here: http://amzn.to/1RsHuHo